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"I have said 'I have never seen anything like it' about other films, but it has never applied to something so entirely alien as this." - Michael W. Phillips, Jr. (Goatdog's Movies)

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God disembowels himself with a straight razor. The spirit-like Mother Earth emerges, venturing into a bleak, barren landscape. Twitching and cowering, the Son Of Earth is set upon by faceless cannibals.

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Begotten is a 1991 Experimental/horror film, directed and written by E. Elias Merhige.

The film heavily deals with religion and the biblical story of earth creation. But as Merhige revealed during Q&A sessions, its primary inspiration was a near death experience he had when he was 19, after a car crash. The film features no dialogue, but rather uses harsh and uncompromising images of human pain and suffering to tell its tale.

The film was shot on black and white reversal film, and then every frame was painstakingly rephotographed for the look that is seen. The only colors are black and white. There are no half-tones. This adds to the eerie atmosphere of the movie as sometimes you cannot exactly make out what it is you are seeing, but you can guess it involves suffering. The look of the film has been described as a Rorsach test for the eye. Merhige said that for each minute of original film it took up to 10 hours to rephotograph it for the look desired.

Mehrige also revealed in Q&A sessions that he would like this film to be the first of a trilogy. He is however experiencing difficulties getting proper funding for such uncompromising and uncommercial projects, and it is unknown if/when the two other films will ever be made.